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This spell is an alternate version of Meteor Swarm. instead of Fireball this spell uses Lightning Bolt. it projects four 240-ft lines of lightning from your fingertips. after the first line, other lines may be projected from anywhere on the lines length, and others from them, etc. each line deals 6d6 points of electricity damage (reflex half). you may elect to aim at a specific creature, in which case you roll a ranged touch attack. if you hit, they take 2d6 points of peircing damage and aren't allowed to save against the bolt. if a lightning bolt is branched from that point, then the electricity damage becomes 12d6, with DR and spell resistance applying once.

This is a spell I am designing for my brother (who plays a Sorcerer who uses lightning) he always says that too many creatures have resistance or immunity to fire. I thought this might work. Please post your opinions.

This spell is an alternate version of Meteor Swarm. instead of Fireball this spell uses Lightning Bolt. it projects four 240-ft lines of lightning from your fingertips. each line deals 6d6 points of electricity damage (reflex half). you may elect to aim at a specific creature, in which case you roll a ranged touch attack. if you hit, they take 2d6 points of peircing damage and aren't allowed to save against the bolt.

This is a spell I am designing for my brother (who plays a Sorcerer who uses lightning) he always says that too many creatures have resistance or immunity to fire. I thought this might work. Please post your opinions.

Sounds great. I think it's a bit underpowered (most direct-damage evocation spells are), so I would note that the piercing damage ignores spell resistance. If you really want to have fun with it, you could let the mage fire the next three bolts from any point along a previously fired bolt.

Last edited by Thomar_of_Uointer; 2012-10-07 at 02:12 PM.

"...I worry that modern gaming is gradually shrinking the wide spectrum of gameplay mechanics into a single narrow red bar with "KILL" written on it sideways. Exploration, navigation, puzzles, platforming, all gradually shrinking away until only one thing remains, being taken by the hand from room to room, moving on only when nothing remains alive in each one." - Yhatzee Crosshaw

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

@ Thomar_of_Uointer
the Meteor Swarm spell specifically lists Fireball as an origin point. if you are not familar with the spell. it creates four 40-ft radius balls of fire. which deal 6d6 points of damage each. that is a total of 24 dice of damage for a 9th level spell (so you can cast it at 17th level, or 18th if you cast spontaneously), and that's not even counting the bludgeoning damage if you hit an opponent with the meteors. this is an actual core spell, so it was built to be balanced. this is the same spell except: replaced the 40-ft radius spreads with 240 ft lines (40-ft is twice the radius of the Fireball spell, and 240 ft is twice the length of the Lightning Bolt spell, two spells which are the same level and therefore about equal. replaced the bludgeoning damage if the meteors hit with peircing damage if the, I don't know, spears of lightning hit. Meteor Swarm is a core spell, found on page 253 of the Players Handbook. it is also the signature spell of Xykon, who uses it regurarly, so I don't think it's unbalanced. I mean, come on, you can blast whole armies with this thing! Maybe I will allow the Lightning to blast from other bolts though.

Also, @Seharvepernfan: yes I could have just changed the fire damage to lightning damage, but the spell actually has mechanics for rocks on fire built in (if you hit with ranged touch attack, enemy suffers bludgeoning damage from the rock, and can't make a reflex save against the attack) and falling rocks that deal lightning damage just doesn't seem that thematically interesting. the idea of spears of lightning (that image is really starting to stick in my mind) is more interesting thematically, and since Lightning Bolt is about equal to Fireball (both are 3rd level Sor/Wiz spells), I decided to replace one with the other as the origin of this spell and see where it went. it's a nice idea and creates a more interesting spell than "Meteor Swarm that deals Electricity damage" which would be boring. I like things to be interesting and thematically tied. (also, about the lines being too long, the range of Meteor Swarm is 400-ft+40 ft per level so maybe the lines are actually too short, but again, this is replacing Fireball with Lightning Bolt (the radius of the Fireball spell was doubled for the Meteor Swarm spell, so maybe I should quadruple the length of the line (if you are familar with geometry, you don't need an explanation), but anyway, no, it's not to long)

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

The thing that makes meteor swarm sometimes worth it is the large area. I don't see many situations where a 240 foot bolt will hit more than a 120 foot bolt, making this very rarely worth it rather than sometimes. So it takes meteor swarm from "well sometimes it's actually pretty good" to truly underpowered. You might try some kind of variant on chain lightning instead. As long as it hits more targets than 4 lightning bolts but less targets than meteor swarm it shouldn't be overpowered.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

Maybe your right. What if I go with Thomar's idea of launching lighting bolts from the main bolt, or other bolts. you could launch it ahead to a four way junction and have 3 480-ft lightning bolts go down each passageway. take out at a large chunk the monsters in each passageway, and then you send in the fighters to mop up whatevers left (not that they won't have support from you, of course). you could lauch it into enemy lines on a battlefield, and watch those weaklings fall in droves. poof, they're gone. I could even say that any monster who gets hit by the ranged touch attack part of it, and is at a point where another bolt has launched off, takes a straight 12d6 damage with no save (damage reduction applies once instead of twice). hit the big ugly monster in the center of a horde and branch out all three from him and deal 12d6 + 6d6 + 6d6 + 2d6 with no save. the peircing doesn't matter much but they will be fried. not to mention all their hordes of minions ("aaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhh", scream the little leveled up goblins, "aaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhh"). fun possibilities, and perfect for an open battelfield (zap the commander and his little minions too). how's that for a 9th level spell.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

it's not that they must save separately against each effect, but that the damage stacks. if the have damage reduction x/peircing, or whatever, that only applies once (if the second lightning bolt emerges from that spot). same with lightning resistance. any effect which applies when he is hit applies once! and then any additional bolts he might be in the area of apply normally. that is what is so unigue.

Edit: here is a quote from the same spell description "Fire resistance applies to each sphere’s damage individually" what I am saying is that, if you hit a target with the spear, and then branch another lightning bolt from that point (the square that the opponent is in) that resistance will apply once (unless you have more than one bolt branching from that point, in which the third and fourth bolts are counting seperately). in essence, it becomes a 12d6 attack instead of 2 6d6 attacks. you really shouldn't link to a site which directly contradicts the point you are trying to make.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

Originally Posted by meteor swarm

(Fire resistance applies to each sphere’s damage individually.)

This seems to imply that not only do you save against each sphere but also take damage from each sphere for each failed save or if you don't have evasion. Not that it's a bad thing to imitate meteor swarm in a variant of meteor swarm.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

the damage stacking is not the same as Meteor Swarm. here's an example.

you use Meteor Swarm against an opponent with Fire resistance 10. you hit him with the meteor, and then plop another one right next to him, so that he is in both of their areas. because of his fire resistance, he takes 12d6-20 (because the resistance applies seperately for each attack). If you attack an enemy with lightning resistance 10 with my spell, hit with the spear, and then branch off another bolt from that point (so that he is the origin point of the second bolt, he will take 12d6-10 (because the electricity resistance applies once) this only applies with the first bolt, though.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

Actually, strictly speaking it's still 6D6-10 + 6D6-10, and yes, because they're variables, it does make a difference (minimum roll being 6, which is less than 10).

Honestly, if you decide to go for this branching 'Uber-Chain Lightning' idea, then it could be rather an interesting spell, if not, I'd still just use Elemental Substitution on a meteor swarm, since it has more utility. Either way though, it's a 9th level Evocation so give it something to actually justify a 9th level slot (something other 9th level Evocations fail to do on the whole).

Originally Posted by bobthe6th

huh, that is not what I thought ER did, I thought it was a like temp HP that refreshed every round... odd.

Alas it doesn't, but that's an interesting thought...very interesting indeed...

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

there, now it lists the effect. I know the wording is vague, but I'm knew at homebrewing. also, I just looked up resistance to energy and it works like damage reduction, except that it only works against the elemental damage it lists'. so this would be a minor bonus. and by the way, by this level, if the thing your facing has energy resistance, it's probably quite high (about four times whatever damage reduction might be)

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

putting a slash through wording I think can be cut, bolding any wording I add, and italicizing any wording I move.

This spell is an alternate version of Meteor Swarm. instead of Fireball this spell uses Lightning Bolt. ItThis spell projects foura 240-ft lines of lightning from your fingertips that deals 24d6 lightning damage(reflex half). You may elect to add up to 720ft in total of lines branching off any lines generated by this spell. Each branching reduces the damage dealt by 6d6.after the first line, other lines may be projected from anywhere on the lines length, and others from them, etc. each line deals 6d6 points of electricity damage (reflex half). you may elect to aim at a specific creature, in which case you roll a ranged touch attack. if you hit, they take 2d6 points of peircing damage and aren't allowed to save against the bolt. if a lightning bolt is branched from that point, then the electricity damage becomes 12d6, with DR and spell resistance applying once.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

that might work, but on the other hand, thiswould be available to wizards at 17th level, and sorcerors at 18th level. 24 dice of damage all in one go (over an area, no less) seems a bit overpowered when compared to other direct damage attack spells of that level. generally they deal 1 die per level. I'll have to think about it.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

Originally Posted by Raazan

that might work, but on the other hand, thiswould be available to wizards at 17th level, and sorcerors at 18th level. 24 dice of damage all in one go (over an area, no less) seems a bit overpowered when compared to other direct damage attack spells of that level. generally they deal 1 die per level. I'll have to think about it.

well, compare it to meteor swarm, it does the same damage, but with a 40 foot radius, so lets do the math, (pi)40^2, or about 5000 ft^2, or 960 ft by 5 ft, or about 4800 ft^2, so slightly less area for more versatility, as well as the fact that if you choose to roll to hit with the lightning, you can do 26d6, while meteor swarm can do 32d6. so in the end, its (slightly) less area, and less damage, for more versatility in how it's spread out, so consider that.

Re: Meteor Swarm Lightning Variant

Originally Posted by zetsu1919

well, compare it to meteor swarm, it does the same damage, but with a 40 foot radius, so lets do the math, (pi)40^2, or about 5000 ft^2, or 960 ft by 5 ft, or about 4800 ft^2, so slightly less area for more versatility, as well as the fact that if you choose to roll to hit with the lightning, you can do 26d6, while meteor swarm can do 32d6. so in the end, its (slightly) less area, and less damage, for more versatility in how it's spread out, so consider that.

was not sure how to add the wording for all the branching lines to add the piercing damage...

also, this is a 9th level spell, this is a slot that a twined empowered fire ball. 27d6 twice... or hell a widened maximized fire ball, for 108 damage in a 40ft radius.

Arc Rupture is a Magnificent and terrible spell.
When you cast it, Four 2 foot diameter spheres of lightning leap from your outstretched hand, then streak in straight lines to spots you select. Each sphere leaves a jagged path of lightning behind it.

If you aim the spheres at a specific creature, you must make a ranged touch attack against that creature.
Any creature struck by the spheres take 2d6 sonic damage and must make a Fortitude save or become dazed. Creatures struck directly by Arc Rupture are denied a reflex save.
You may aim more than one sphere at the same target.
Once a sphere reaches its destination, it explodes in a 40-foot-radius spread, dealing 6d6 points of electric damage to each creature in the area, dealing half damage on a sucessful reflex save.
If a creature is within the area of more than one sphere, it must save separately against each.
(electric resistance applies to each sphere's damage individually).